Diet sodas are a danger to the heart

Diet drinks increase the risk of vascular disease

01.02.2012

Regular consumption of diet soda brings a significantly increased risk of vascular disease, strokes and heart attacks with it. A US research team led by Hannah Gardener from the Department of Neurology at the University of Miami has found that people who consume diet drinks on a daily basis are more than twice as likely to be at risk as people who do not drink diet sodas.

Together with other US researchers from the Universities of the Miami Miller School of Medicine and the Medical University of Columbia University in New York, Hannah Gardner has examined the effects of diet soda consumption on the risk of vascular disease. The diet soft drinks showed a very negative effect. For example, Gardner and colleagues report that the risk of vascular disease, including strokes and heart attacks, is 43 percent greater with daily consumption of diet drinks than those who refrain from such soft drinks.

Vascular diseases, strokes and heart attacks by lemonade
According to the statements of the US scientists, diet soda should not be used as a thirst quencher, because in the long run serious health problems are to be feared. Hannah Gardner researchers, as part of their extensive long-term study of 2,564 participants over a nine-year period, examined the effects of diet drinks and regular soft drinks on the risk of vascular disease. It showed that both the risk of a chronic vascular disease and the probability of an acute event such as a stroke or myocardial infarction increases significantly. With daily consumption of diet soda, the risk of disease has almost doubled. According to the US researchers, this result was also confirmed when other factors such as the consumption of alcohol or tobacco, a high body mass index (BMI) or overweight, the daily calorie intake and the intake of protein, carbohydrates and fat approved.

Diet soft drinks with negative health consequences
However, as it is still unclear how the diet drinks contribute to damage to the vessels and why they have a more damaging effect than normal lemonade, the researchers warn against hasty conclusions. „Further research is needed before any conclusions can be drawn regarding the potential health consequences of dietary soft drink consumption“; explain Hannah Gardner and colleagues in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. However, earlier studies, according to the US scientists, had already pointed to a connection between the consumption of diet sodas and diseases such as type II diabetes, the metabolic syndrome (combination of obesity, hypertension, altered blood lipid levels and insulin resistance) or coronary heart disease.

Sugary soft drinks increase the risk of diabetes
However, US scientists have also shown in another study that the consumption of ordinary sugary soda, an increased risk of diabetes with it brings. In their study, researchers examined the link between diabetes and the consumption of sweet drinks in more than 91,000 women. They found that women who consumed more than one sugary soda every day more than doubled the risk of diabetes compared to those who drank only one such drink a month. The cause was the slight digestibility of sugar, which quickly gets into the blood, but is also broken down quickly. The associated fluctuations in blood sugar levels should, according to the US researchers, increase the risk of diabetes in the long term. In addition to these negative effects of normal soft drinks is in the Nurse´s Health Study, which also relies exclusively on women's data, described an increased risk of coronary heart disease from consuming sugary soft drinks.

Thus, the results of the current long-term study on the effects of soft drinks and diet sodas on vascular disease risk are just another factor among many who are against the use of (diet) lemonade. Those who value a healthy lifestyle, prefer instead to water, juice or unsweetened refreshment tea. (Fp)

Also read:
Diets make you fat and sick
Violence by sugary soft drinks?
Diet soda increases heart attack risk

Picture: motograph